The U.S. seeks further cooperation with Russia on arms disposal

The United States is trying to persuade Russia to continue cooperation for the disposal of nuclear and chemical weapons under the Nunn-Lugar program, which expires in mid-2013. Moscow, however, is reluctant. Viktor Litovkin talks about why Russia opposes a renewal of the agreement that has proved useful over for the past 20 years.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland reminds Russia that the Nunn-Lugar program, also known as the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, would be expired in June 2013. Source: AP

The United States is trying to persuade
Russia to agree to continue the Nunn-Lugar program, which is also known as the
Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. The topic was even mentioned by U.S.
President Barack Obama at a recent conference on non-proliferation in
Washington. One of the authors of the program, Sen. Richard Lugar, flew to
Moscow this summer to meet with military experts and colleagues from the State
Duma.

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America's desire to prolong the
program, which began back in 1992, was also affirmed in mid-October by U.S.
State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland. She noted that the program is
due to expire in June 2013.

"For this reason, we have begun
negotiations with Russia to extend the agreement in July. The talks are still
in progress. The Russians have told us that they want to review the agreement,
and we wish to discuss the options," Nuland said.

In the two decades of the program's
existence, thousands of nuclear warheads and large stockpiles of chemical
weapons have been destroyed. "In the period 1992-2012, the U.S. spent $8.8
billion on the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program," said the director
of the Center for Public Policy Research, Vladimir Yevseyev.

"The program
has greatly contributed to Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus renouncing their
nuclear status," said Yevseyev.

But if all is well, why does Moscow
refuse to put pen to paper?

Formally titled the Soviet Nuclear
Threat Reduction Act of 1991, the Nunn-Lugar program was approved by the U.S.
Senate in 1991. The purpose of the program was not to
offer charitable aid to Russia to help reduce the huge stockpiles of weapons of
mass destruction the country had inherited from the Soviet Union after the Cold
War. The goal was not even to insure against unforeseen contingencies.

The
program had a pragmatic and specific objective: to protect the U.S. from any
uncontrolled deployment of these terrible weapons and, even more so, to prevent
them from falling into the hands of international terrorists.

Therefore, the U.S. willingly funded
the program, so as to significantly reduce the potential threat to its national
security. This generosity, however, turned into stubborn foot-dragging when it
came to weapons that were no longer combat-ready and posed more of a threat to
Russia.

The U.S. is offering to negotiate a
further reduction of nuclear weapons – including tactical ones – while keeping
nuclear weapons on foreign soil in Europe (unlike Russia), ready to be carried
on board F-16 bombers under NATO command.

All of this creates an unfavorable
backdrop for the conclusion of a new agreement on the Cooperative Threat
Reduction Program.

"Our American partners know that
their proposal is not consistent with our concept of how further cooperation
should be aligned," reads a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry on
the proposal for extending the program.

"The agreement does not particularly suit us, given the new
realities and Russia's considerably increased financial capability," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov
explained. "Moreover,
much of what the Nunn-Lugar program sought to address has been resolved and no
longer exists as a problem."

Essentially, Russia has made it clear
to the U.S. that it has no intention of backing out of international
cooperation on the non-proliferation and decommissioning of weapons of mass
destruction. But Russia plans, in the future, to determine for itself what
needs to be eliminated and what, potentially, can remain.

In recent years, Russia has
significantly increased budget spending on its disarmament commitments. For
example, more than $7 billion has gone toward the decommissioning of chemical
weapons and nuclear submarines alone. According to Ryabkov, this circumstance
entitles Moscow to insist on equal and mutually beneficial cooperation in
matters of disarmament.

Russia aims to see through its projects
under the Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass
Destruction – but not to the detriment of its own national security. After all,
one of the arguments against a renewal of the Nunn-Lugar program is the fact
that it provides the U.S. with too much "sensitive information" on
Russia's strategic nuclear deterrent.